Commercialization of Occupy Wall Street gathers steam

Just a bit more than five weeks into the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City, and already the movement has drawn its own episode on an MTV show.

MTV said this week its “True Life” show on Nov. 5 at 6 p.m. Eastern time will focus on Bryan, a leader of the Occupy Wall Street sanitation team. The episode focuses on a dramatic moment in the protest on Oct. 14 when New York City officials planned to clear out the park for cleaning, but then backed down.

Seeking to connect with disillusioned folks in the key 18-24 age group, MTV’s news crews have already been covering the protest. While protesters hope to raise the plight of unemployed and other folks left out of the boom times enjoyed by America’s wealthiest residents, plenty of corporations are already positioning themselves to use the movement to grow ratings, or sell products.

In a strange twist to the commercialization of the movement, Occupy Wall Street was prominently mentioned in the marketing push behind a new book, “Red Army: The Radical Network that must be defeated to save America” by Aaron Klein and Brenda Elliot. Klein claims to “expose the radical nexus behind the Occupy Wall Street movement.”

The book officially went on sale on Amazon.com on Tuesday, and it’s already been discounted to $17.63 from $26.99. Some of Elliot’s other titles listed on Amazon.com include “The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists.”

With conspiracy theorists hot on the trail of Occupy Wall Street, could an Oliver Stone movie be far behind? At any rate, look for the cultural footprint of Occupy Wall Street to grow in TV shows, and probably at least one feature film, not to mention a load of documentaries to go with the ample news coverage of the effort.

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